There are requirements to transmit video information from a video source such as a video camera to another unit such as a video display through a lossless process so that the data received is an exact representation of the data transmitted. Conventional solutions exist such as Wide Area Network protocols to address these requirements but they typically are not optimized for the multitude of boundary conditions that are specific to the system and the consideration of a cost of the associated implementation. To overcome this limitation, an improved system that could move data in a format that is native to the source of the data with a high overhead efficiency to minimize the magnitude and cost of the system and to enhance the performance through a streamlined system can be developed. In such a system, a video camera is utilized which outputs a standard National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) square pixel format which has an inherent data rate of 12.5 Mega Pixels per second (Mps). The most typical mode of transmission of this type of data would be to convert the camera Red Green Blue (RGB) color space to a YUV color space. YUV is a format that represents the signal as luminance and chrominance information and is a widely used video format for the transmission of digital video data. The video camera sensor's RGB data however, tends to be approximately 1.5 to 3 times less of a data amount as the YUV format. The reason for this disparity is that the camera sensor data is an efficient method of sampling a scene in which to extract YUV information. By taking advantage of the data in its original form and transmitting it before the color space transformation, a data reduction of 1.5 to 3 times can be achieved. This is a critical issue during NTSC square pixel video signal transmission. The amount of data required to transmit the data in the YUV domain is approximately 150 Mega bits per second (Mbs) which exceeds the capability of Ethernet systems that typically transmit data at 100 Mbs. Therefore, if the data could be transmitted in the camera sensor's original RGB format, the data requirements could be reduced from approximately 150 Mbs to 75 Mbs. As such, the data could be transmitted using the standard, low cost, 100 Mbs transmission method.
Another limitation involves the utilization of the Ethernet protocol for the standard transmission method for 100 Mb data. In such a utilization, the resultant true data output would be far less than 75 Mbs because the Ethernet protocol has multiple operational requirements such as multi-drop operation, error detection, source and destination addressing, and multi-speed operation. In the aforementioned improved system, many of these requirements are not needed. Therefore, these operational requirements can be removed to increase the efficiency of the transmission. However, the video camera data includes unique requirements such as data transmission response latencies to be addressed above normal Ethernet needs. As such, requirements to add additional functions with a minimum penalty to the transmission efficiency exist.
Therefore, it is desirable for the present invention to overcome the conventional limitations associated with transmitting data between a video camera and a base unit.